Page 32 of Crosshairs

He shot her a skeptical look.

“My dad didn’t think I’d make it as a law enforcement ranger, and here I am now, working in an elite group with the National Park Service. One of thirty-three. If I can do it, so can you.”

Ainsley put Colton’s phone number and Natchez address in her phone. “I’ll be in Natchez until the investigation is over. If you need to talk or remember other details about the murder, give me a call. My number is on that card I gave you.”

He seemed about to say something, then his face closed down. “Thanks.”

She left him sitting at the picnic table and walked to the next campsite. Colton Mason was holding something back. She just didn’t know what it was ... yet.

16

Linc had no luck with his five campsites. Two of them, fancy RVs traveling together, had arrived an hour earlier and hadn’t seen anyone. The other three campers had not arrived at Rocky Springs until Wednesday and, like the first two, had not seen anything out of the ordinary.

When he finished with the last campsite, he looked for Ainsley. She hadn’t made it past the first camper and was talking with the boy he’d run into in the woods. He considered joining them, but something drew him to the trailhead. There’d been a couple of tent campers on the main road, and he could walk the Old Trace for a piece, and then veer off to talk with them.

Dappled sunlight shaded the colors of the trees on the historical path as he walked a carpet of pine needles, his thoughts drifting to Ainsley. Being around her was more painful than he’d expected when he agreed to help Sam. His sigh blended with the birds singing above him.

She hadn’t forgiven him for siding with her father. Linc hadn’t opposed her trying to make it in the music industry because she didn’t have a good singing voice. Ainsley had a beautiful alto—at least that’s the label that music critics gave her voice. To him it was pure and unaffected and touched his soul.

Linc had discouraged her because he feared the cutthroat music business would chew her up and spit her out, and he hadn’t wanted to see her hurt. At least that’s what he’d told himselfat the time, but if he’d been honest with himself, he would have realized he feared losing her.

When she was asked to sing backup to one of the top names in gospel music, he and her dad staged a mini-intervention, trying to make her see the dangers that lay ahead. She had not taken it well and broke it off with him. He’d lost her anyway.

Linc thought she was on her way to stardom, and then after a year and a half, she disappeared. The next time he heard anything about her, it was through her grandmother, who relayed that Ainsley had returned to college and was a year from graduation. By then, Linc had been recruited by the FBI and was caught up in that world. Truth be told, he’d been more than a little upset that Ainsley had given up her dream so easily.

He’d like to know what happened to her music career. Linc had asked Rose, and she’d told him he’d have to ask Ainsley. So far there hadn’t been a good opportunity.

Why was he doing this? Torturing himself with thoughts of Ainsley? He shifted his focus to his surroundings as a light breeze rustled the leaves. The Old Trace he was hiking was the original road that had begun with bison traveling to salt licks and then morphed into a highway for Native Americans, then French trappers, then Kaintucks ... even Andrew Jackson’s army.

Something within him stirred at the thought of adding his footsteps to the same path that over ten thousand travelers a year had walked in the early 1800s. He eyed the towering oaks shading the trail. It was even possible some of these huge trees had been saplings at the time.

Movement ahead caught his eye. Two people hiked toward him. If they’d been out long, maybe they’d seen something or someone.

“Morning,” he said when they reached him.

“Good morning to you as well,” the man answered.

Linc catalogued the man’s dragon tattoo that started on one side of his neck, then wrapped around to the other side anddisappeared into his long-sleeved pullover. It was a habit left over from his FBI days.

He met Linc’s gaze while the woman barely nodded before she looked down at the ground. From her gaunt frame, she could possibly be ill. Still, she reminded him of someone ... Colton. The woman had to be his mother.

Linc identified himself to the couple. “Have you met many hikers on the trail this morning?” he asked.

“Nope.”

The man’s reply had been a little too quick. “You didn’t see anyone at all?”

The woman lifted her head slightly and cast a sideways glance at her husband.

“No one at all,” he replied. “Right, Alma?”

She tucked her head down. “Right.”

Linc barely heard her reply. “And you would be ...?” He took a notepad from his shirt pocket.

“Jesse and Alma Mason. We’re camped at site 1. Been there since Monday.”

That’s where he’d last seen Ainsley talking to Colton. Linc jotted down their names. “Address and phone number? Just in case I need to get in touch with you.”

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